Hundreds gather in Middletown to honor memory of city’s homeless who died in 2016

Hundreds gather to honor memory of city’s homeless who died this year

Published
4:08 pm EST, Friday, December 23, 2016

Hundreds gathered in Middletown Thursday to celebrate success in the effort to end homelessness and to honor 15 members of the homeless community who died in 2016.

Hundreds gathered in Middletown Thursday to celebrate success in the effort to end homelessness and to honor 15 members of the homeless community who died in 2016.

Photo: Jeff Mill — The Middletown Press

Photo: Jeff Mill — The Middletown Press

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Hundreds gathered in Middletown Thursday to celebrate success in the effort to end homelessness and to honor 15 members of the homeless community who died in 2016.

Hundreds gathered in Middletown Thursday to celebrate success in the effort to end homelessness and to honor 15 members of the homeless community who died in 2016.

Photo: Jeff Mill — The Middletown Press

Hundreds gather in Middletown to honor memory of city’s homeless who died in 2016

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MIDDLETOWN >> Hundreds of people gathered this week to celebrate success in the effort to end homelessness and to honor the memory of 15 members of the homeless community who died in 2016.

The homeless and their advocates, the formerly homeless, police officers and Mayor Dan Drew joined together Thursday to mark National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day in a late-afternoon service in the Church of the Holy Trinity on Main Street.

The annual service, which has been held locally for more than a dozen years, is part of a nationwide observance of the effort to combat homelessness.

The event is held either on or as close as possible to the Winter Solstice, the day with the shortest amount of sunlight. Doing so “symbolizes what a long night it is if you are homeless,” said Lydia Brewster, assistant director of community services for St. Vincent dePaul Middletown.

The number of those who had to spend a cold, dark night huddled in a doorway or on an unforgiving street was substantially reduced in 2016, Brewster added. Sixty-six homeless people in and around Middletown were connected with home providers during the year, said Kasey Harding, the director of the Center for Key Populations at the Community Health Center.

Much of that success is due to a change in addressing the problem, by focusing on specific groups — veterans, for instance — within the larger homeless community, explained Cindy Dubuque of the Partnership for Strong Communities.

Beyond that, success has been achieved by a renewed commitment from the Malloy administration and from the state through the efforts of the departments of Housing and Mental Health and Addiction Services, Dubuque said.

Locally, the effort has gained from the support of the city and from “the United Way and countless other organizations working with — and on behalf of — the homeless,” Dubuque said.

And while that is welcome news, “There is still work to do,” she added.

As she began the service, Holy Trinity’s pastor, the Rev. Dana Campbell, called attention to the 15 men and women from the homeless community who died during the year. More than just their lives, their unique stories were lost as well when those 15 people died, Campbell said.

Campbell said she had searched for a meaningful way to commemorate those lives. She thought first of flowers. But, “flowers wither,” Campbell said.

And so Campbell took a page from Judaism.

As each person who attended the service entered the church, they were asked to take a stone from a large flat flower basket.

“Within the Jewish faith, it is customary to leave a small stone on the grave,” according to the website shiva.com. “Placing a stone on the grave serves as a sign to others that someone has visited the grave. It also enables visitors to partake in the mitzvah tradition of commemorating the burial and the deceased. Stones are fitting symbols of the lasting presence of the deceased’s life and memory.”

“(Placing a stone) symbolizes that our memories of that person never go away,” Campbell said. “It is a sign that you were there and that you remember that person, and that person continues to live through you.”

A shopping cart used by a homeless man to carry all he owned sat on the chancel, covered with a plain white cloth.

In his remarks, Drew continued on the theme of the connections made and fostered throughout each person’s life — and how one life can affect many other lives. Too often — and wrongly, Drew said — “We default to a position of measuring the worth of a life by material success.”

“But it is the love that you have created during your life that will live on forever,” the mayor said. And through that love, “you can literally change someone’s life for the better.”

Allison Cunningham, executive director of Columbus House, the New Haven-based advocacy group for the homeless, spoke of the ongoing effort to combat chronic homelessness.

And she spoke of Sal, who for too long was homeless, until one day he decided he would make the commitment to once and for all get off the streets, Cunningham said.

It happened for Sal.

“And what I want to offer to you is the hope that one day in the not too distant future, you too can say — as Sal did — ‘My nightmare is over,’” Cunningham said.

Cunningham gave way to Michael Burrill, a formerly homeless man who said, “This is the most important service on the most important day of the year for those of us who are homeless.”

Burrill, who has battled alcohol addiction, said there were days when he was on the verge of giving up.

“I never thought I’d live to see this day,” he admitted.

But Burrill did, and his personal testimony won the support and admiration of those in the audience. More than 60 people who are or were homeless then introduced themselves, giving the human face to the issue of homelessness.

Ron Krom, the executive director of St. Vincent dePaul Middletown, prepared to read the names of each of the 15 homeless people who died, Krom asked the audience to respond by saying “Presento!” a Spanish term that he says means “that person is here with us.”

Two members of the homeless community alternated lighting candles that had been placed on a table in the transept as the names were read: Sage Pierce; Jon Allegretti; Soraigia Long; Lissette Colon; Carter McDonald; Ray Weston; Kurt Wright; John Marcinkowski; George Ward; Steven Eick; Geoff King; Sevron Dawley; Mitchell Domo; Darlene Wise; and Daniel Loguiduice.

The audience members were asked to come forward and place their stones on the table.

The lights of the church were then dimmed so the candles lit in memory of the 15 people took on an added brightness.